How does your Internet speed compare to other Internet service providers? If you don’t know, Netflix is cracking down on the answer for you. The video-streaming site has launched a unique ISP Speed Index on Monday, which compares Internet speeds in the US, the UK, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. The Index doesn’t cover every ISP in the world, but it does rank those existing in countries where Netflix is available.

What does Netflix have to do with Internet speed, you wonder? As a major streaming service, Netflix can measure the video streaming rates of its users. With over 33 million subscribers streaming over 1 billion hours of entertainment each month, this is a relatively decent sample. The Index’s data is offered in a list format as well as a line graph for a more visual representation. All information is updated with new findings on a monthly basis.

Granted, the data rates are based solely on Netflix’s performance rather than general Internet usage, and can therefore be conveniently ignored by ISPs. However, some users on Reddit speculate that this will put pressure on ISPs to increase the quality of their speeds.

How does the speed rank in your area? What does Netflix have to gain by releasing this index?

Netflix is also one of the few streaming services that allows you to select which definition you wish to stream content. So for people stuck without a superfast internet connection like Google Fiber, or even some of the cable and fiber optics options, you can still stream without buffering problems. I personally have AT&T DSL that averages a download speed of 5 Mbps (and our Netflix account is set to stream at standard definition), and we never have buffering problems. But . . . Hulu streams all content at a higher definition. Because AT&T caps us at 150 GB per month, we probably couldn't rely on Hulu as our main stream provider. http://www.streaming-411.com/broadbandrequirements.htm

As the Reddit users' say, this is clearly a way for that.
It would also be interesting for another -future benchmark- the sad list of download/upload caps imposed by the ISPs. Canada is an example of that 20th-century retrograde bussiness policy for a limited Internet use.